Syria
- Thread starter harry
- Start date
No jews or americans involved harry. Nothing in it for the left and of course their fav nation china has once again proved to be a moral vacuum
But on the real point, given that the arab world wants to see the back of assad both russia and china have nicely alienated themselves
But on the real point, given that the arab world wants to see the back of assad both russia and china have nicely alienated themselves
The reason things are quiet is there's nothing to disagree about.
I presume most of us want to see the back of Assad, and to see him and the leading figures of the regime made accountable for their savagery, and most of us oppose the positions adopted by Russia and China.
The dilemma is whether or not to intervene militarily. In general I think it is better for outsiders not to get directly involved in such situations, including this one. There are a variety of reasons for this, including the obvious one concerning the cost and the stretching of resources, but also because armed soldiers and civilian populations do not mix well, no matter how welcome the troops might be at first. Also, after you topple the hated figure, what happens next?
By the way, I find the notion that China is the left's favourite country very surprising. To me it appears to be a dystopian mix of authoritarianism, corruption and 19th century style industrial revolution in which individual rights are suppressed and the environment is ignored. I'm sure that is a caricature but nevertheless it's not where I would be looking for political ideas to inspire me.
I presume most of us want to see the back of Assad, and to see him and the leading figures of the regime made accountable for their savagery, and most of us oppose the positions adopted by Russia and China.
The dilemma is whether or not to intervene militarily. In general I think it is better for outsiders not to get directly involved in such situations, including this one. There are a variety of reasons for this, including the obvious one concerning the cost and the stretching of resources, but also because armed soldiers and civilian populations do not mix well, no matter how welcome the troops might be at first. Also, after you topple the hated figure, what happens next?
By the way, I find the notion that China is the left's favourite country very surprising. To me it appears to be a dystopian mix of authoritarianism, corruption and 19th century style industrial revolution in which individual rights are suppressed and the environment is ignored. I'm sure that is a caricature but nevertheless it's not where I would be looking for political ideas to inspire me.
Sheikh
At the Start
The Russians and Chinese where not happy with the intervention in Libya so you can take it that Syria will not receive any (obvious) assistance from abroad. Assad is safe in the medium term.
surprised?
they prefer to blame USA of all things that happen in the world
about the military action
occident dont have money to go there and Iran
but it is clear that would be the only way to stop what is happening there
I agree with most of what Grey says but Suny is right. Quite a few on the left are looking admiringly at China as an alternative world power to the hated americans. And also the harder left are certainly not adverse to authoritinarian regimes. Quite admire them in fact.
walsworth
Journeyman
Why do we need a World regime?
swedish chef
At the Start
By Iqbal Latif - 6/2/12
History of freedom is a linked phenomenon. I see hands of science behind this waft of freedom all across the Middle East. The remnants of the last ideological pillars face their ultimate nemeses: the new invented connectivity of the world challenging the established norms and traditions of desert.
The revolt against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, inspired by uprisings which toppled three Arab leaders in 2011, has taken a sectarian slant as most of the protesters trying to topple the president are Sunnis. Progress and freedom from the bazaars of the world cannot be bought over hate shelf, it is a way of life and a way of thinking that needs maturity and toleration; the prerequisites of such a maturity is the dumping of ideological fixations for the good of man.
The conundrum of Syrian action jolts the conscience of man. The callousness of Assad Jr.'s action shames Gaddafi obduracy and ruthlessness; but little changes in the part of the world where 1400-year-old schism between Islam is now being fought by the proxies of Iran, like the Alawites of Syria, backed by secular Russians and Chinese as part of the great game of protecting their soft bellies of 'Strait' oils from the influence of Western alliance. The clannishness, secrecy and tenacity of Syria's power elite around Assad have deepened Sunni Muslim suspicions about the enigmatic Alawite faith. Iranian support of Assad is based on ideological proximity and Iranian last bastion and land connection to Middle Eastern trouble makers the Hezbollah's of Lebanon. An oppressed minority for most of their history, Alawites suddenly cemented their control in Syria in 1970 when Assad's father Hafez staged a coup that sidelined the Sunnis. He built a ferocious security apparatus based on fellow Alawite officers.
Assad is from Syria's minority Alawite sect and critics say the president has filled senior political and military posts with Alawites to impose his rule through sectarian loyalty. Sunnis Muslim make up 74 percent of Syria's 22 million population, Alawites 12 percent, Christians 10 percent and Druze 3 percent. Ismailis, Yezidis and a few Jews make up the rest. Alawites are an offshoot of Shi'ites. Some other Muslims, particularly in Syria and Lebanon, accept them as Muslims, but others consider them heretics (ghali). Nations with no respect for science, logic and reason will have no toleration and freedom either.
People ask why we question instituted truth. Legitimacy of so-called 'established truth' is the cause of intellectual self-indulgence and degeneracy of ideas. What is fossilisation of mind? It is the worst ailment that affects most of us, but we rarely go to any specialist to seek help. Our clergy and soothsayers become our authority to seek remedies from malady of thoughts; they straitjacket us into thousands of years-old hold of incoherent fables and ask us to follow those for eternal nirvana; we create our own divisions of man based on antiquated ideas from scriptures, though it is just a matter of time we all as humans shall be one.
Today we need to talk about precise, surgical operations that are needed to cleanse this rampant puritanical streak of self- righteousness. It is not Islam-phobia to question cause and effects of delay in the emergence of renaissance and actions to overhaul antediluvian thinking processes; it is only through volte-face and restructuring that we will be able to eradicate from the organic body of 'political Islam' tentacles of its enormous fanatic infrastructure. We need our unwavering resolve to question and condemn the ills of lunatics and fringe killers who have taken upon themselves to make this earth heaven by making it hell for everyone. The slide of nations in the 21st cradle of revolutions in the Middle East cannot be arrested by half measures of 'lesser dose of religion' rather an eradication campaign aimed at revolution to be democratic and freedom akin to the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen!
History of freedom is a linked phenomenon. I see hands of science behind this waft of freedom all across the Middle East. The remnants of the last ideological pillars face their ultimate nemeses: the new invented connectivity of the world challenging the established norms and traditions of desert.
The revolt against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, inspired by uprisings which toppled three Arab leaders in 2011, has taken a sectarian slant as most of the protesters trying to topple the president are Sunnis. Progress and freedom from the bazaars of the world cannot be bought over hate shelf, it is a way of life and a way of thinking that needs maturity and toleration; the prerequisites of such a maturity is the dumping of ideological fixations for the good of man.
The conundrum of Syrian action jolts the conscience of man. The callousness of Assad Jr.'s action shames Gaddafi obduracy and ruthlessness; but little changes in the part of the world where 1400-year-old schism between Islam is now being fought by the proxies of Iran, like the Alawites of Syria, backed by secular Russians and Chinese as part of the great game of protecting their soft bellies of 'Strait' oils from the influence of Western alliance. The clannishness, secrecy and tenacity of Syria's power elite around Assad have deepened Sunni Muslim suspicions about the enigmatic Alawite faith. Iranian support of Assad is based on ideological proximity and Iranian last bastion and land connection to Middle Eastern trouble makers the Hezbollah's of Lebanon. An oppressed minority for most of their history, Alawites suddenly cemented their control in Syria in 1970 when Assad's father Hafez staged a coup that sidelined the Sunnis. He built a ferocious security apparatus based on fellow Alawite officers.
Assad is from Syria's minority Alawite sect and critics say the president has filled senior political and military posts with Alawites to impose his rule through sectarian loyalty. Sunnis Muslim make up 74 percent of Syria's 22 million population, Alawites 12 percent, Christians 10 percent and Druze 3 percent. Ismailis, Yezidis and a few Jews make up the rest. Alawites are an offshoot of Shi'ites. Some other Muslims, particularly in Syria and Lebanon, accept them as Muslims, but others consider them heretics (ghali). Nations with no respect for science, logic and reason will have no toleration and freedom either.
People ask why we question instituted truth. Legitimacy of so-called 'established truth' is the cause of intellectual self-indulgence and degeneracy of ideas. What is fossilisation of mind? It is the worst ailment that affects most of us, but we rarely go to any specialist to seek help. Our clergy and soothsayers become our authority to seek remedies from malady of thoughts; they straitjacket us into thousands of years-old hold of incoherent fables and ask us to follow those for eternal nirvana; we create our own divisions of man based on antiquated ideas from scriptures, though it is just a matter of time we all as humans shall be one.
Today we need to talk about precise, surgical operations that are needed to cleanse this rampant puritanical streak of self- righteousness. It is not Islam-phobia to question cause and effects of delay in the emergence of renaissance and actions to overhaul antediluvian thinking processes; it is only through volte-face and restructuring that we will be able to eradicate from the organic body of 'political Islam' tentacles of its enormous fanatic infrastructure. We need our unwavering resolve to question and condemn the ills of lunatics and fringe killers who have taken upon themselves to make this earth heaven by making it hell for everyone. The slide of nations in the 21st cradle of revolutions in the Middle East cannot be arrested by half measures of 'lesser dose of religion' rather an eradication campaign aimed at revolution to be democratic and freedom akin to the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen!
Grasshopper
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2006
- Messages
- 16,050
Clivex, who are these people who "hate" America in one breath, yet express admiration for China in the next?
I haven't read any opinion pieces which reflect such a mindset myself. Are you sure these bogeymen aren't just a figment of your imagination?
As for authoritainian regimes, both Lefties and Righties are happy to shake hands with some very dubious people.
As for Syria?
I dunno. I keep coming back to the opinion that the Arab League should step-up and do more. After all the bollocks that 'the West' has had to deal with on the back of the excursions into Afghanisan and Iraq, I think we should back-off and let the Arab League take the initiative.
Let them put their money where their mouths are.
In answer to your question
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/s...ardian-a-case-of-dangerous-moral-equivalence/
There again its not worth reading the idiot in the Guardian
I agree with the point about the arab league
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/s...ardian-a-case-of-dangerous-moral-equivalence/
There again its not worth reading the idiot in the Guardian
I agree with the point about the arab league
trackside528
At the Start
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2006
- Messages
- 5,377
A few years ago at university I managed to drag myself from the pub for (just about) long enough to write a thesis on the workings of the UN Security Council.
It was largely to do with constructing a game theoretic model about when states would exercise their veto powers in the UNSC (a pretty rare occurrence, and certainly ever less frequent in recent times). One of the conclusions was that a state was far more likely to compel compliance when it could pose a credible unilateral or bilateral alternative were the multilateral negotiations to fall through.
In the Syrian case it seems pretty clear that coercion through the Arab League as an alternative to the UNSC is clearly not a credible bilateral alternative. I get the feeling that the firm US stance against bilateral military intervention taken from the beginning has, to a pretty significant degree, undermined their bargaining position in the UNSC as well.*
I don't think anybody is at all sure what the endgame in Syria is likely to be.
*That's not to endorse bilateral military intervention, but merely to suggest that ruling it out entirely weakens the US/France/GB bargaining position significantly.
It was largely to do with constructing a game theoretic model about when states would exercise their veto powers in the UNSC (a pretty rare occurrence, and certainly ever less frequent in recent times). One of the conclusions was that a state was far more likely to compel compliance when it could pose a credible unilateral or bilateral alternative were the multilateral negotiations to fall through.
In the Syrian case it seems pretty clear that coercion through the Arab League as an alternative to the UNSC is clearly not a credible bilateral alternative. I get the feeling that the firm US stance against bilateral military intervention taken from the beginning has, to a pretty significant degree, undermined their bargaining position in the UNSC as well.*
I don't think anybody is at all sure what the endgame in Syria is likely to be.
*That's not to endorse bilateral military intervention, but merely to suggest that ruling it out entirely weakens the US/France/GB bargaining position significantly.